Mark Holbrook’s July 12 Maine Voices column gets it wrong in at least two important ways.

• First, he takes on those who oppose the repeal of the Affordable Care Act by claiming that their predictions that some people will die as a result of a repeal are “wild” and false. But it is true that some people likely will die as a result of a repeal. The current Senate bill will lead to 22 million people losing coverage by 2026, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report on the bill. Well-founded research shows that expanding health coverage (whether through private insurance or Medicaid) lowers death rates, especially for treatable conditions.

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By the same token, reducing health coverage will increase death rates, experts have found. So, sadly, the prediction that some people will die as a result of the repeal is probably correct.

• Second, he claims that these dire predictions about the consequences of the health care law’s repeal are connected to a range of things such as Kathy Griffin’s Twitter post, Berkeley’s failure to protect the free speech of conservatives on campus, and a widespread acceptance of violence as a means to an end.

I completely agree that these episodes are unacceptable and that violence is not a means to an end. I also agree that our political discourse should be both fact-based and civil. But highlighting the likely effects of an Affordable Care Act repeal is not what leads to these intolerable outcomes.

Jennifer Wriggins

Portland

 

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